Goalkeepers no longer allowed to catch ball - New season law change missed by media

Artist impression of the hand movements preferred by top keepers, now no longer allowed catch the ball.

While the football media concentrated on the season's new law change mandating that the colour of tape used by players must match the colour of their socks, everyone appeared to miss an even more important adjustment.

2 weekends into the new season and it is clear that another law change making it illegal for Goalkeepers to actually catch the ball is having a far bigger impact.

Already, the new requirement on the do's and don't's for keepers is making a few top Premier League stoppers look like schoolboy novices and has also boosted the League's goal tally.

First, in week 1, Villa keeper Shayne Given was forced to play 'patter cake' with a header from Everton striker Mary-Anne Felaini, resulting in the ball flying into the net.

Meanwhile, down at the Boleyn Ground, Jessi Jaskerlienan was attempting to elbow out a shot from Swansea's Angel Angel, playing without the 'R' in front of his name for the first time, also resulting in the ball slipping under his body and into the net.

Now, in week 2, inspired by his Premier League goalie colleagues, Liverpool's Pepe Raina has decided to get in on the act and has successfully squirted a shot into his own net from Arsenal's new wizard, Spaniard Santa Carzorla, a player who immediately on arrival at London Colney, had been given the nickname of 'Father Christmas' by his witty team-mates.

All 3 keepers insisted that under the old law, they would have caught the ball instead of trying to adopt creative hand and arm movements better suited to an impression of Ronald McDonald, in their attempts to stop the ball in its' tracks.

The new law has also seen many of top keepers adopting the new fad of punching the ball away from their goal as it rockets towards them when it would be far simpler to just catch it.

And this behaviour has confused some fans following last season's law changes which insisted that all keepers be required to wear goalie gloves up to 3 times the size of their actual hands, thereby making it quite easy to catch the hardest shot even with one mitt, baseball style.

Former top keepers from the 1970's, were surprisingly upbeat about the change affecting their craft. 'We welcome the new law', they chimed. 'After all, how will these keepers get any better unless they are forced to do things in unconventional and daft ways? They continued, 'Of course, in our day, those shots wouldn't have reached us but would have got stuck in the mud. All we had to do was pick it up out of the puddles. What a laugh we had when the ball used to make that funny squelching noise!'

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